Go ahead and turn on the light

Examine me, O Lord, and test me; try my reins and my heart. Psalm 26:2

Nicole just returned from her grand finale with Rachel’s Challenge- they were dined, gifted and...evaluated, they got to go over tapes of their lectures with an instructor.  As a teacher, I know the scariest and most humbling thing ever to be videotaped and then watch it.  It’s all there, the incomplete sentences, the clapping of hands, the marching back and forth, the ineffective classroom management, documented and in full color.  I can still exactly picture the last tape I saw of myself... with piles of bones in the middle of each lab table and I was leaping about garnering enthusiasm for Scientific Illustration and really seeing.  But it’s also the most effective means of growth.  Suddenly it’s not about what we imagine we are doing or hoping we are saying, but what is real. And that is the foundation for all growth.  Truth.  

I am quite sure that I blow right past the discipline of confession- beyond just the general hurriedness of my life, I am not much of one for any mirror, especially that of my soul.  A quick glance, or the occasional sharp Holy Spirit stab, and that is it.  And it’s really not if I am brave enough to unbare the hidden parts to the keen eye of Him, but am I humble enough?  Am I willing to stop pretending and let him rip out all of the Christyness and leave Himself in her stead?  

“Give me all of you. I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want you, all of you.  I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to kill it.  No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.” C. S. Lewis

Yes.  One doesn’t really want to settle for playing Christianity, going through the motions, trying to do everything right, sort of, most of the time.  One wants to be.  Thus the discipline.  Pause and let His loving eyes probe deep within.  There are no secrets from Him, only from myself.  Thus, it is time to drop the robe of social niceties and allow Him free rein to do as He will, the Master Craftsman creating in His own image.  

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.